LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Chad Evers has returned his mailbox in Cape Coral, Florida, to its rightful place, but it wasn't easy.
"I found my mailbox all the way down there. You can see the stop sign where that car is pulling out all the way down there, so probably about a quarter mile from here, I found my mailbox," Evers said.
Evers is a native of Scranton. He now lives in Florida and teaches environmental science at Florida Gulf Coast University. He shared what he and his family saw as Hurricane Ian blew over his Florida home.
"The winds probably were over 100 miles an hour for probably four or five hours, and just, you're in the house, and you know everything's boarded up, and you're sitting there with like a flashlight, and you can just feel the wind is vibrating the house and shaking the house. And we peaked out at probably 7:45 as the winds were just starting to go under 100 miles an hour. And where you and I are standing right now, we would actually have been probably like waist-deep in water."
Evers says what this storm did to Lee County, Florida, will have a lasting impact on his lectures and how he views life on the Gulf Coast.
"What we should be doing is really considering how much more development we're allowing in southwest Florida and where we're allowing development to occur because as we continuously destroy the wetlands, wetlands act like natural flood control and if there's not enough wetlands, there's nowhere for the water to go and that increases flooding."
Evers is saddened by the loss of life, and his heart is with those families as well as the ones who will be dealing with the devastation for years to come.
"If we look at people who have money versus people who don't have money, you know, we all get hit by this hurricane, but there's going to be significant impacts down the line. More so for, like, people who are living in poverty and things like that. So, you know, that's going to be a huge issue."
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